Sigh. One more into the breach, dear friends. Call of Duty 3 continues the ancient tradition of World War II first person shooters, as Activision's 95th attempt to recreate the last great war for freedom. But alas, the game feels stale, unoriginal, and of course, recycled like the dozens of other WWII shooters flooding the market.
What is COD3 about? I don't need to answer that question. So many games have covered World War II the only part we haven't played yet is the video game where you play FDR delivering speeches to Congress. To add insult to injury, the game looks and feels like a Gamecube game slapped onto a Wii disc, which it probably is. The graphics aren't all that great, the only exceptional mention I can think of is lighting effects, but even fog looks dated and is extremely difficult to work through. Character models are blocky and very last-gen, and hitboxes are about the same--there is a fair amount of chance involved when you are trying to pick off an enemy soldier with a carefully-placed shot.
Controls are a significant issue in this game. Like Red Steel, COD3 is an early Wii shooter, so it has its bugs that need working out. That being said, it needs a lot of working out. Aiming is difficult--despite trying various sensitivity settings, I was unable to get the on-screen cursor to remain steady long enough to shoot accurately; the only real solution was to pick up an automatic and spray and pray. A lot of the commands are awkward, such as twisting the nunchuk to one side to switch weapons--it is extremely easy to do this by accident and have the wrong rifle out in the middle of battle. Reloading works like in Red Steel: you jerk the 'chuk up toward yourself. Problem is, there is a noticeable delay in this action, enough that it makes you wonder if you did the gesture correctly.
My greatest pet peeve of this game? The melee combat. If you do get into hand-to-hand with an enemy (and you will) you are forced to engage in an awkward movement of both hands away from the chest. It takes a good 45 seconds before you can successfully throw off your attacker, and then you have at best two seconds to reorient your weapon and gun them down before the cycle starts again. It's indescribably annoying, and Infinity Ward did not think the idea through very well in my opinion.
All told, it's just another World War II shooter. It's overplayed, overused and boring by this point. It's nice to play with the very accurate Wiimote, but not what it could have been. There's really nothing remarkable about this game, to be totally honest--if you want a first person shooter, stick with Red Steel for now.
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